BSP-SP tie-up in UP hinges on results of five states

Lucknow, Assembly election results of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram, slated to be announced on Tuesday, will be crucial for Uttar Pradesh.The mandate will apparently make or break the proposed alliance of the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in the Hindi heartland state which sends 80 MPs.

Regional satraps SP and BSP have occupied the political space of the Congress which was displaced after the Mandal and dalit upsurge.Indian National Congress had declined to accommodate SP and BSP in MP, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. The SP and BSP want to pay back the Congress in the same coin when it comes to stitching alliances in UP for Lok Sabha polls.

It is clear that both SP and BSP do not want to commit anything before the votes for the five assembly elections are counted. The top leadership of Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party made this apparent by failing to show up at the two-day long farmers protest in New Delhi attended by other non-Bharatiya Janata Party leaders.

‘First Congress tried to spread misinformation that BSP was demanding 50 seats in Madhya Pradesh which was totally false. They fought last assembly elections in UP in coalition with Samajwadi Party and the results are in front of everyone.

Even if on Tuesday, Congress gains an upper hand in a few states, then too there will not be any kind of pressure on BSP to include Congress in any kind of alliance for 2019 Lok Sabha elections,’ said a senior party leader here on Monday.

The Samajwadi Party, highly optimistic about alliance with the BSP is also reworking its strategy. The SP, which was once the biggest political party in the state, at present seems to lack a strong organisational structure.

This can be well understood by the fact that even after almost a year of dissolving its various affiliates, including Yuvjan Sabha, Alpsankhyak Sabha, Lohia Vahini and Mulayam Singh Youth Brigade, not even one unit of these organisations have been reconstituted. Most importantly, the man who was responsible for strengthening the structure of the party once, Shivpal Singh Yadav, has now formed his own political party, Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party Lohia.

‘I think results in state assembly elections are important, but what’s more important is the defeat of National Democratic Alliance in next year’s Lok Sabha polls. Opposition parties are more concerned about 2019 elections.

Samajwadi Party is striving hard to weave a stronger alliance. We want all like-minded people to come together to defeat BJP-led government at the Centre,” said Sunil Yadav, MLC and SP spokesperson, while talking to UNI.

Analysts aver that the situation will undergo a radical change if any of the three Hindi-speaking states go into the Congress kitty. They said no matter what Bahujan Samaj Party maintains regarding a pact with Congress in Uttar Pradesh, developments will definitely be impacted by tomorrow’s results and both the SP and BSP will be compelled to take some tough decisions.